Made it to Arlington
by Gixxer Pilot
Summary: Sometimes, giving your best simply isn't enough. Kirk, McCoy and Pike find this out the hard way in the wake of the Battle of Vulcan. Warning for canon character death.


******Beta**: Livejournal's awesome Wicked Jade

******Warnings**: Angst, Character Death (Canon)

**Author's Notes**: This story is an alternate take on how I think the 2009 movie could have ended if luck hadn't been on the Enterprise crew's side after Kirk, Spock and Pike beamed back from the Narada. Because of that, it's definitely a painted with dark brush strokes. I'm telling it from Pike's POV, so if it feels a little disjointed, that's the way it was meant to be. When you get to the end, I hope you'll understand why.

This whole first person thing is a very new experience for me, so foreign that I wondered if I should have even bothered feeding the tribble when this idea struck me. But after some most excellent hand holding by my equally excellent beta, I decided that the idea was worth exploring. Even though Pike's voice comes very naturally to me, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this story practically wrote itself especially given the fact that I'm not at _all_ an angst writer. Even more surprising was the fact that I well and truly loved this fic when I completed it. I hope you all do, too.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Star Trek, nor do I own Bruce Greenwood's awesome. I just own the crazy idea below.

* * *

People always whispered about me.

I heard it everywhere – in the mess hall, in the locker rooms, in the PT areas, at briefings – wherever there were people, there were rumors about Lt. Christopher Pike, the new command wonder the Fleet was fast-tracking through the ranks. As a cocky young asshole, I wore the side eyes and uncontained glares my colleagues leveled at the back of my head like badges of honor, but only when I could be bothered to look. Most of the time, I ignored them in favor of doing my job. It worked out pretty well – I was captaining my own ship eight years later. Not bad for a lazy kid from California who spent most of early life surfing.

But the one thing I _did_ remember hearing an awful lot from my early crews was, "He's fucking crazy."

In retrospect, maybe they were right.

My dad was a career military man who taught me to lead by example. It sounds so cliché, but there really wasn't a damned thing I'd order my crew to do that I wouldn't carry out myself. My crews called it my hero complex. I just thought it was equality. Or stupidity. Or captain's prerogative. I guess it's a matter of perspective there.

My unique captain's "perspective" was probably why I found myself strapped to a table, staring up into a glaring white light while a pissed-off Romulan with a grudge held a really nasty slug above my head.

He wanted me to do what with that, exactly? Yeah. Great fucking day.

It's all a little bit of blur after that. I remember pain, choking on that damned bug, more pain, some extra pain after that, and a little bit of fear mixed in for good measure. I was afraid – really afraid – for the first time in my life. I'm not being macho (really, how 'macho' can a man be while he's sputtering out garbled words and half sentences that wouldn't make sense in _any_ language) when I say this, but my fear wasn't for my own personal preservation. I was actually worried about my crew and the rest of the Federation. What's that, Chris? Oh, that's my hero complex talking again. Thanks. I guess it's nice to know that I wasn't being a completely selfish bastard during my forcible interrogation.

After I realized I wasn't going to suffocate to death, I started to feel the toxins creep into my bloodstream the moment that bug latched on to my body. It almost tingled, working for the base of neck and then up into my head. It made my vision swim and thoughts go fuzzy. I remember wondering what that devil's spawn was doing to my brain and spine, but I realized just as quickly that I couldn't concentrate on more than one thought at a time. I figured I had more important matters to deal with, like not spilling the defense codes for the Federation's perimeter networks. Everyone knows how well that worked out.

Not such a hero now, am I?

I think I wanted to give up and die right there. Would have probably been more merciful. Shame and embarrassment aren't things I've ever done very well in my life. Neither was quitting. I guess there's a first time for everything, right?

I wasn't holding out hope that there was a favorable ending for me aboard Nero's ship. All that was left to decide was how _it_, meaning my sorry demise, was going to happen. At least I took with me the look on Kirk's face when I dropped him, Sulu and Olson out of the bottom of the ship. For a split second, I saw a fleeting glimpse of terror in Jim's eyes on the cargo bay viewer as he dropped from the shuttle. I thought that was pretty hilarious; I finally found something that raised the kid's heart rate, and it only took my certain death to do it.

Speaking of Kirk. Jesus. I hope that kid learns from everything that's happened, from all the mistakes I made. He's going to make a hell of a captain, just as long as he figures out how to listen to common sense.

That's ironic. 'If Jim learns to listen to common sense'. Pot, meet the kettle. I don't think I thought this whole attack plan through very well. Hell, I don't think I thought it through at all. All I knew was that I was being offered a way to save the compliment of my crew, and my ship, and as the captain, I had to take it. I sure as hell didn't expect to ever see the Enterprise ever again. Spock knew it, Sulu knew it, and Kirk knew it, but Jim was the only one with enough balls to say it to my face. Everyone else has that sense of self-preservation Kirk lacks completely.

It's probably not couth to be bitching about the guy who saved my sorry ass, but I was a little irritated that Kirk bent my orders so he could justify his ridiculous and selfish rescue. Everyone really is right – that kid is exactly how I was twenty years ago – impulsive, brash and unpredictable. Jim should have fallen back and regrouped with the rest of the 'Fleet, which was the exact opposite of what he did. Clearly, the three years' worth of influence from one Leonard McCoy was enough time for the doctor to pound some common sense through Kirk's thick skull. In any case, I should have stayed good and pissed at him, maybe even lectured him, but the sound of Federation-issue phaser fire was music to my ears. I figured I could forgo the ass chewing _just this once_, seeing the annoying little shit risked his neck to come get me.

Being transported while doped up on some foreign slug's toxins, battered from interrogation and half dead was an experience I don't wish to relive. Ever. When I rematerialized on the pad, I had to put my hand up to my hip to make sure that my intestines were still _inside_ my body. I felt like I belonged in one of those old war movies, lying on Omaha Beach turned inside out from Nazi mortar fire. I'll bet that's something my first captain didn't know – I'm a history buff.

I looked out the corner of my eye long enough to see that cocky little smirk grace Kirk's face. If I had the strength, I'd have reached up and slapped it off him, just to remind him that he was only the temporary captain of the Enterprise. She was still my ship. Or, at least until the medical board declared me unfit for duty. That, I knew, was coming, right along with the charges for dereliction of duty and manslaughter for God only knows how many people I killed because I couldn't keep my fucking mouth shut.

But first, I'd have to make it there. I felt a little like a football between Kirk and McCoy. Jim's a strong kid – typical Iowa farmboy, but McCoy's got the build of a damned linebacker. He practically picked me up and dragged me down the hallway without the help of his orderly on the other side. It hurt so badly when he lifted me off my feet, I almost passed out right in the middle of the transporter room. For all the fighting McCoy does with his mouth (which he does a lot), I got the feeling that if I ever found myself on the other side of one of his punches, I'd remember it. I made a mental note not to test that theory, so I doubt I'll ever be able to report on it.

The last thing my body needed were more drugs, but McCoy told me he had to put me under for surgery. I let him do it because he said that was the only way I had a chance. I could see he was just as scared as I was – no one had seen this kind of slug before – so it was a leap of faith for both of us. But I trust him – he's the best doctor in Starfleet, despite the fact that I peeled his drunken ass off the floor of a bar in Iowa.

I don't really know how the surgery went, but when I woke up, I noted happily that the screaming agony that was shooting all over my body was gone. I could actually feel my legs, and the tingling, burning sensation that blossomed out from my neck, down through my chest, and to the very tips of my toes, had receding to a more manageable level. I could move freely and my head was finally clear.

Kirk and McCoy came in then, talking quietly in voices so low I had to strain to hear them. But their faces told me everything I needed to know. They both looked immeasurably old, pale and exhausted, glancing at me from time to time. McCoy nodded his head imperceptibly when Kirk asked him a question, and then Jim went white. Something was wrong; I'd never seen that kind of reaction from either of them before. McCoy, the man with the most stoic upper lip in the Fleet, was on the verge of tears. Kirk looked devastated, like he was ready to puke or pass out right then and there in the middle of sickbay. He and McCoy sat down and had a drink after which Jim started walking towards me. I thought about waving him over, but then his comm chirped and he ran back out the door and on to the next crisis. Oh, the joys of being a captain. Sleep depravation becomes the norm.

McCoy and his staff largely left me alone, which was nice. I had enough of the poking and prodding to last the rest of my lifetime, thank you very much. Len came over once and told me he was sorry he couldn't do more for me, that he should have been able to "fix everything", that he should have kept going, that he wished he'd had more time to figure it out. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about; stress and lack of sleep must have finally caught up to him because I thought he did plenty. I don't know if Puri could have done what McCoy did, and the former was a damned good doctor.

I learned from listening to the hubbub of sickbay that the ship was on its way back to earth under half impulse (I thought I heard something crazy about full warp core jettison by our new chief engineer; both facts were news to me), most of the crew was still alive, and Nero was burning in some part of hell in another universe. That was good enough for me.

They decided that unloading the casualties through the cargo bay with shuttles was the easiest way when we made spacedock. Starfleet might operate in space, but its history was tied to the old US Navy and the finest maritime traditions. As such, I was the last one off, just like it should have been. Selfishly, it was nice to know that I had a few extra minutes on my ship before they gave her to someone else, and before I had to pay the piper. I tried not to look at my crew as the medical team took me through the corridors, but I caught glimpses here and there. Most of them stopped their work briefly and looked down as I passed. Some smiled, some bit their lips, others just simply nodded or did nothing.

They moved me to a makeshift triage area that had been set up when Starfleet heard the Enterprise was on her way back. What remained of Starfleet's active members met with the heads of Admiralty and the Academy Board of Trustees. Decisions had to be made, business had to be done. Life needed to go on, even if our losses were nearly seventy percent. I shudder to think about, and how much of that was my fault. Avery came by a couple of days later and told me not to worry, that there wasn't anything I could have done, but I don't buy it. There was always something else, something more or better I could have done. In my heart and in my soul, I know it.

But I digress. As thanks from a grateful Federation, I've been given a nice new place to lay down roots, not that I deserved it. Due to the sheer number of inhabitants that have called this place home during the last 500 years, it's one that's normally reserved for dignitaries or heroes. I sure as hell am not either one of those, but the 'Fleet saw fit anyway. I protested; they didn't listen. It's not the sun, surf and sand of California, but it'll work. There's green grass, rolling hills, people to talk to. The President is a few minutes away. I'm told he visits every now and again, though I can't say I care. Politics aren't my thing.

I've grown to like it. It's pretty here; peaceful, nice. It's the kind of place a former Starfleet captain could definitely get used to, even if it's not the retirement I planned. It's a place that I can call home, near to people I've learned about, studied and respected. I share space with some of the finest minds in science, engineering, command and tactics. It's exciting as well as humbling. My parents and siblings visit every now and again, as does Kirk, McCoy, that Russian whiz kid and the rest of Jim's crew when the Enterprise is in port. I've even caught Spock here from time to time, though I'll bet he denies ever coming if Kirk asks him. For a Vulcan, he's a traitorous bastard.

Coming to terms with what I did when I gave up our defense codes was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I still think about it each and every day. I wonder what would have happened if I'd held out a little longer, if I'd been a little bit stronger. I think about the people who lost a husband, a wife, a son, a brother, or a mother or father. I wonder what unfinished business they left behind, and if they were content with their lives. I wonder because I wasn't so sure I was all that satisfied with mine.

But then I think about what I had accomplished, the people I had managed to help. "A man can't be judged by the stripes on his shirt or by the ribbons on his chest, but by who he is inside," is what my old man used to tell me. I tried to take that model and use it as a captain, and as a person. I may not have always done the right thing, but everything I ever did was done with the best of intentions. It just took me a while to realize that. I think I can say now that I'm walking away from my service to the Federation with my head held high, proud of what I accomplished in my life.

And because of that, I made it.

I made it Arlington.

**-FIN-**


End file.
